Here's a typical hole-in-the-hood Camaro. It sits like a truck. The wheels are dated, the valve covers were hip when Reagan took office, and it sucks enough gas to implode OPEC. This represents everything that magazines, and good taste, have banished for 20 years. All told, it's virtually flawless.

2/24We very nearly went to jail for this photo. Read more about that in Holeshot next month. But true to street machine form, the Crusher now blazes the tires with ease.

This throwback represents the third life for the Crusher Camaro, a '67 that's been around here since we paid $700 for it in 1993. (A brief history appears in this month's Where It All Began column.) We decided to act on our long-standing retro urges and revert the car to the cruise-scene imagery we 40-somethings ached for during our junior high through high school years after mainlining the feature cars in HOT ROD and Car Craft every month. We're talking about the pre-Pro Street days. The car we want for today is like the junk that was built from, say, 1978 to 1982 with lots of ripple effect into the late '80s.

As a bellybutton Camaro, the Crusher seemed like the perfect candidate for street machine greatness, so follow along as we ditch the old billet 17s and modern brakes and revert this junk to '80s style. It's the most fun project we've done in quite a while, and we can't wait to go hit the newly renewed Van Nuys Boulevard cruise scene in the car. Happy days are here again.

Ah, the heart of today's street machine rework. We love our Weiand-blown big-block. Here are the keys to the period look:

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A) Sharp readers will note the lack of a fuel pump boss on the block, revealing this to be a Mark V or VI engine and therefore an anachronism.

B) These are Hooker's new Darksides headers that have ceramic coating in black, ideal for the look we wanted. They are PN 2457-3HKR with 2.00-inch tubes and 3.50-inch collectors. They fit perfectly with just one light smack where they kissed the frame. Several applications are offered with the Darksides coating.

C) We used metal-laden body filler to fill the Holley logos on the ends of the heads, since most guys only had stock iron heads in the '80s. These heads lack the stock contours and freeze plugs, but the hidden logos and painted aluminum at least partially conceal the modern heads.

D) You were nobody in the '80s without a set of gold-anodized, lightweight, stamped-aluminum Moroso valve covers. These were among the keys to our whole look, and the T-bar fasteners are the clinchers. The addition of Moroso Perm-Align, rubber-coated, steel-core gaskets and a set of hold-down tabs keep them from leaking like they did in the old days.

E) We chose the satin look for the Weiand 8-71 blower, which makes it more racy and less showy.

F) Most cars of the '70s and '80s used in-line, single-feed Holleys, but we did spot some old HOT ROD feature cars with side-mounted units like our 850 HP-series carbs. We made sure to get the older zinc-chromate finish and not the new shiny versions.

G) Mr. Gasket velocity stacks rule. We got them used on eBay, and only gold anodizing would improve 'em.

H) This is a new Weiand Team G aluminum water pump painted red to hide its identity. Likewise, the March billet pulley (the only short-pump, single-groover we could find) was fogged black to look more like a stamped-steel stock pulley.

Other '80s Gotta-Haves
When bench racing this buildup with a number of motorheads, guys often piped up with the stuff they remembered from the old days, usually starting with, "Oh, and you gotta have..." Here's a list of some '70s/'80s gotta-haves that we left off the Crusher.

• The big, chrome-and-orange Fram HPG-1 fuel filter hanging under the rear bumper (Summit Racing still sells those)
• A Holley Blue fuel pump, also peeking below the bumper (and also still a top seller)
• Your "girlfriend's" garter belt around the tach (how come we never saw girls actually wearing them?)
• Wristbands around the valve cover breathers, because there's no chance you actually had a PCV valve
• A big, feathery roach clip or high school graduation tassel hanging from the rearview mirror
• Speed stickers on the underside of the trunk lid, probably including an Erson Cams decal if you lived near a Super Shops
• A KMET sticker in the rear window (the defunct Mighty Met was the Los Angeles rock station of choice; insert your favorite here)
• Gabriel Hijackers air shocks (with the rabbit sticker in the quarter-windows)
• A Kraco eight-track deck
• Gauges mounted on the cowl
• A Camaro (or whatever brand) tinted banner across the top of the windshield
• Lift shackles on the rear
• A Pete Jackson geardrive
• Dual remote oil filters, either hanging under the front bumper or in a hideously inconvenient spot under the hood
• An oil pressure gauge somewhere under the hood
• A name painted on the quarters or on the back of the rear spoiler, something along the lines of Highway Star or perhaps just a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon spectrum logo

Rollers And Meats
To pull off the '78 to '82 vibe, you have very few wheel choices: slot mags, Cragar S/S's, Center Line Auto Drags, or Cragar Super Tricks. Perhaps with skilled application you can pull off Western Vectors or Keystone Klassics, but that's a tad sketchy. You can opt for raised white letters to really shout your cause, or you can downplay the look and modernize it a skosh with blackwalls. Radials are a no-no unless you can find early-tread-pattern BFG Radial T/As.

We installed several sets of wheels and tires on the Crusher for three distinct looks. All our mounting and balancing are handled by So-Cal Tire Pros in Burbank, California.